Derek Lam's Bohemian Minimalist Beauty

"It's not that I'm lazy," exclaimed makeup artist Tom Pecheux with a smile. "I'm just focusing on a very minimal silhouette." The look in question was a soft and gentle ray of light on the models' eyes and a deep berry lip that Pecheux applied with his fingers. It looked as though it was melting onto the skin. Pecheux's team used three Estée Lauder eyeshadow hues to create a stripe of color down the center of the models' lids, leaving the brows and lashes bare. "Derek is from San Francisco, so we based this whole look off a really casual, homey West Coast interior, the kind of place you'd want to curl up in and relax." said Pecheux.

"I try to stay away from pulling references because then I get stuck in recreating the past," said hairstylist Orlando Pita.

"Instead, I worked with Derek and got inspired by the collection. I'm not nostalgic, I don't look back at a time period to inspire me, it's all about now." Ironically, now for Pita was a sophisticated take on an '80s favorite—crimping—which happened to pop up on a lot of runways this season. "We did about eight to ten braids on the girls' hair, then flat ironed over those," he said.

Pita added: "The collection was very graphic with architectural shapes. We based the beauty look off of the textural wools and fabrics that Derek used, so it ended up looking very bohemian minimalism."

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"It's so sophisticated," enthused Jin Soon Choi, who applied a grayish neutral polish to the models' nails. Choi corralled the beauty editors backstage and started handing out hand massages using Estée Lauder hand cream. "You have to moisturize!" she exclaimed. "That is the most important thing in the winter."

We would gladly curl up in Lam's homey world anytime, especially if there were hand massages awaiting us.